Artist-in-residence Devora Neumark, who presented film of her installation art around Montreal and the world, and then worked one-on-one with participants to create installations and ceremonies throughout the conference on the theme of finding home.

Taina Asili, singer-songwriter singing from her show, “Bend with the Wind”

This conference featured a panel on spirituality, social action and the word, which featured Quakers Callid and Kristina Keefe-Perry, spiritual seeker Elizabeth Ann Hin, David Abram, Allison Hedge Coke, consciousness studies scholar Francis Charet, and minister and educator Bill Beardslee. The open mic brought together wonderful talent from among participants. Talking circles, held each morning for all participants, allowed participants to better integrate their conference experiences. A witnessing circle, led by Kristina Perry and Callid Keefe, gave everyone who participated a chance to sit in silence together and speak when moved. Pre- and post-conference workshops included the body and breathing earth with David Abram, writing about the horrendous and the beautiful with Allison Hedge Coke, sacred circle dance with Evelyn Torton Beck, narrative medicine with Lewis Mehl-Madrona, poetry therapy with Perie Longo, and breath and movement and writing with Janet Aalfs.

The conference workshops this year were very rich:

Get it Out There: Tips and Strategies on Writing, Editing, Marketing & Promoting Your Book – Adele Nieves

Narrative Strategies: Perspective Taking and Point of View – Margaret Blanchard and Sowbel

Grounded in Community: A Quaker View of the Creative Word – Callid and Kristina Keefe- Perry

Shadow Express: A Quick Trip from Me to You and It, and Back to Me – Reggie Marra

I am Not a Juvenile Delinquent – Sharon Charde

A Living Poetics – Elizabeth Anne Hin

Dancing at the Crossroads: Mentoring Youth through Story and Metaphor – Lorna MacDonald Czarnota

Integral Writing: Engaging the Wisdom of our Bodies – Jill Jepson

Readers’ Theatre as Cancer Education in Alaska: Awakening Possibilities in a Living Spiral of Understanding – Melany Cueva

“A Gift from the Unconscious”: The Common Processes of Poetry & Dreaming – Jan Hitchcock

Nothing is Created in a Vacuum: Drawing on the Blues to Understand and Create Art and Community – Rochelle Pyne

The TLA Network also met at the council and continued to grow, and this conference also included a book release party for the TLA Network’s first publication, The Power of Words: A Transformative Language Arts Reader.